As a candy enthusiast, it’s important for me to not only taste candies and love doing so. It also entails knowing a lot of the history behind the candies. Anyone who knows anything about candy knows the name David Klein. He’s the man who invented the Jelly belly jelly bean, and is the focus of a documentary call “CandyMan”. It’s a really good documentary if you haven’t seen it, and what I’m reviewing today are David’s newest jelly bean.

At first I was skeptical of the “Beyond Gourmet” in the name of these jelly beans. Gourmet is such a trendy word to throw around nowadays, especially in regard to food products. ONe look at the flavor list of these jelly beans and I immediate got why they’re named in such a way:

I had some trouble with the packaging, as the little wells inside the box didn’t contain my jelly beans very well. When I first opened them they had all amassed as a giant colorful pile at the bottom and I had to sort them back into their original spaces. That was harder than it sounds, as some of the jelly beans, mainly the Cranberry, Pomegranate, Black Cherry and Grape are pretty close in color.

Upon opening the box and looking inside, you can see how gorgeous the beans are:

Enough with the looking, let’s get on with the tasting!

Bacon: I admit I was skeptical of this flavor. I know “meat” flavored jelly beans have been attempted before, and there’s bacon jelly beans that I’ve seen around yet I haven’t’ tried any of them. The bean is a cream colored with brown speckling on it. It has no aroma. The flavor starts off very spicy and smokey. It actually does taste like bacon! It has a pork flavor with a lot of smoke to it. Of course there’s some sweetness to it. I have to admit, I love bacon, and tasting it in a jelly bean is bizarre. Tasty, but bizarre.

Black Cherry: This flavor is awesome. It’s deep, very complex flavor. It’s sweet, it has notes of jam and and it’s all back cherry. Extremely authentic, totally delicious.

Blueberry: This flavor is a little strange to me. It has intense berry notes right at the beginning, and about halfway though does the true blueberry flavor comes out. When it does, boy, it’s the real thing. Yum!

Coconut: This flavor is outstanding. It tastes like real coconut flakes. It has this extra tier of flavor that really makes this taste who and authentic. So awesome, one of the best flavors in this box.

Cranberry: This flavor was very tasty. It’s tart, zesty and has the “bite” that cranberries have. It’s a taste tha tworks really well in jelly bean form. Delicious!

Ginger: This one is spicy and fun. it has the very typical ginger “burn” to it, and it’s like taking a swig of an authentic ginger ale. It’s like eating real crystallized ginger.

Grape: The flavor is very floral for grape. I get notes of concord grape and jam in there. It’s a very tasty bean.

Green Apple: This flavor is fun. It’s starts off wit ha floral edge then immediately blossoms into apple. I’m surprised that it tastes so authentic. It’m immediately reminded of those dried apple slices that just pop with flavor.

Himalayan Sea Salt: This one is really unique. It has a sweetness to it, that’s very plain and has no essence to it. The salt flavor is really awesome, it balances beautifully with the sweetness. A really different and delightful bean.

Lemon: I was looking forward to this flavor so much. It’s exactly everything I hoped it would be. It’s tart. It’s zest and it’s completely refreshing. The lemon flavor it out of this world. I love it so much!

Orange Punch: This flavor is so much fun. It’s bright and punchy with notes of oranges and tangerines. It’s sweet, it’s tart and full of citrus flavor. So wonderful.

Peach: This is a fun flavor. It’s perfectly preach. I get notes of peaches, and oddly, plumeria. It’s a very juicy, fresh flavor. One of my favorites!

Pomegranate: This flavor was hard to pin down. Pomegranate is a very vague flavor to me. it tastes very fruity and red, with a nice tartness to it. It’s very delicious and refreshing because of the tartness.

Root Beer: This jelly bean is my absolute favorite out of the whole box. I have never tasted a more delicious root bear candy than this jelly bean. It is absolutely outstanding. The flavor stats with subtle spice and wintergreen notes and then quickly blossoms into a creamy, rich root beer flavor. Amazing!

Strawberry: This flavor is really great. it tastes exactly like a sweet strawberry jam. Often candy strawberry flavors just come across as “pink” or “red”, but this flavor has completely captured the fruit.

Vanilla Bean: This bean is so delicious! It tastes like melted vanilla ice cream. It’s so flavorful. This bean even has the bleck flecks on vanilla in it. So yummy!

I was really impressed with all these flavors. The “beyond gourmet” title is certainly well earned. These flavors taste amazing and incredibly authentic, even more so than it’s Jelly Belly ancestors, and they take that little extra step into new “gourmet” territory with the ginger, bacon and Himalayan Sea salt flavors. Just, wow. My fiance and I both really adored these jelly beans, and we hope to order some of their other jelly beans at some point. The “wasabi” and “thai chili” flavors just call to us, we want to try them! Bravo David Klein, bravo!